Tagged: private option

The program's fate is expected to become clearer this week, with Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson set to deliver a speech Thursday on the future of health care in Arkansas that will also address his plans for the private option.

There are still a few races yet to be called, but what we know already about the results from Tuesday's election in the state legislature sets up what is sure to be an interesting battle over the state's private option.

Arkansas is asking the federal government to allow changes to the state's compromise Medicaid expansion that would require some participants to contribute monthly to health savings accounts and would impose new limits on transportation for non-emergency services.

Over the past few months, the eyes of a nation trying to work with the reality of the Affordable Care Act have been trained on Arkansas, where bipartisanship aimed at doing the best for Arkansas’ working poor while controlling the growth of government had struck upon a novel solution called the “private option.”

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences had an operating loss of $27.8 million in the first six months of its current fiscal year, a dramatic downturn from an $8.5 million operating gain during the same period a year earlier.

During the last session, key Republican legislators put aside their dislike of Obamacare to craft a unique way to accept federal dollars to provide health insurance to Arkansans who desperately need it: the “private option.” Thank you, Sens. Sanders, Dismang and Burris. Thank you, Rep. Murdock and others who worked behind the scenes to make Arkansas a health care innovations model for the nation.

It is most disappointing, as the middle class declines and the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” widens, that there are still elected officials who believe “it is not the government’s role to provide for able-bodied people.”

Davy Carter, speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives, said he thinks legislators will hold their noses and vote to continue funding the “private option” Medicaid expansion during the fiscal session that begins Feb. 10.

The private option provides a long-overdue lifeline to working people who have not managed to break into the middle class. Now our state is on the cusp of taking a giant step backward, taking away the private insurance that just began to provide a modicum of security for people living on the edge.

The chairman of the House Public Health Committee says a proposal to use federal Medicaid money to purchase private insurance for 250,000 low income Arkansans gives Arkansas a unique opportunity to shrink its Medicaid rolls and show other states how to reform health care.